Howl
by caylender
Summary: First, Artemis explores her supposed insanity and the wind, and Wally might just be the Cheshire Cat... This is a series of vignettes that focus on Artemis and Wally after the ending of Season 2. Starts slightly sad but will get happier, I promise. Please R&R!
1. Howl

I found a doc with a version of the last two paragraphs in the 2nd person. I kind of loved how it read, so I tweaked it to fit Artemis. I can't help it; I love Wally, Artemis, and Spitfire. I will probably attend OWYOTP meetings eventually... (Obsessed with your one true pairing)

 **Disclaimer** : I don't own these characters; I totally wish I did...

* * *

It is simplicity at its most fundamental point. All her job entails is that she stands on a neighboring rooftop to provide cover fire if anything awry should occur. However, Artemis knows, that out of the three potential hotspots that the teams will infiltrate this night, this unassuming warehouse is a dead end.

Aqualad purposely assigned her a less stressful mission because he believes Black Canary. And her diagnosis? She cannot handle a tougher placement. Black Canary believes that she has not allowed herself time to properly grieve for Wally. As a result, she has become unhinged.

Unhinged

Untethered

Unbalanced

All synonymous with: insane. She can hear Wally's playful voice, complete with a goofy grin. "You are crazy, Arty."

"Crazy? Is that right?"

"Mmm hmm, absolutely bonkers!" He replies cheerfully. "But don't worry; out of everyone in this team, each one is at least part way mad."

"But I don't want to go among mad people," Artemis remarks.

"Oh, you can't help that," says Wally: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."

"How do you know I'm mad?"

"You must be," says Wally, "or you wouldn't have come here."

He has a point; Artemis nods to herself as she stands at the edge of the roof. This job is insane, so it would make sense that she is equally insane. Not to mention of course the irony of literally standing on the edge of a rooftop… possibly on the brink of insanity if she really is talking to her supposedly dead boyfriend.

Regardless of what people think, sometimes, she thinks that Wally is there right next to her, just invisible to her gaze. If she were to take a step to the left and become a part of the air itself, she would be able to see him again.

He's not really dead. There wasn't a body left behind.

He just changed. She cannot see him as a result of the energy and more scientific jargon that Wally would be able to understand and explain in a heartbeat.

He is not truly dead after all, just intangible.

As the night draws on and the sky darkens, Artemis is startled by the wind. Like anyone who ventures outdoors this night, she thinks that the wind's gusts possess an aura of sorrow because the wind does not merely blow this night; it howls. Howl, she decides, adequately describes the sound because for some reason, the wind seems so sad that it reminds her of a lone wolf that points its nose to the night sky and laments its solitary state; it howls. Each and every one of the wolf's cries flies through the night and becomes the wind.

The sound frightens the hearts of any passersby, like her, since the sound cuts down to her core. And for a moment, when she hears the wind, inexplicably Artemis fears oblivion.

Oblivion - the time when sorrow grows so insurmountable that whoever feels it ceases to exist, and there is nothing that remains but sorrow, howling in the wind. It is a state so raw and stripped that others cannot comfort or even hope to understand the depth of despair. Human reason deteriorates until only raw hurt exists.

After minutes pass and Artemis stands immersed in the howling, she has an epiphany. Throughout the months that followed Wally's ceasing, she has been crying out silently, beseeching. It is only now that Artemis realizes that the howls are coming from her own mouth, and that tears have left roaring rapids down her cheeks. It is her sorrow that the wind carries. And that she has reached the moment of oblivion.

She had reached that moment long ago.

* * *

 **AN:** Part of the dialogue between Wally and Artie is taken from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - the conversation with the Cat. I thought it was fitting. ^_^

Leave some thoughts, please. I'd love to know how this reads. Reviews are my favorite. :)


	2. HeRuns

So I was having way too much fun playing with format in this one. What? Me? Playing with format? Totally crazy, I know! So this one is very experimental. I keep flip flopping between loving it and hating it.

 **Disclaimer:** I don't own Wally West. :)

* * *

 _1E_ k = ½ _mv_ 2

Heruns

Heisrunningrightnow

Heabsolutelycannotstop.

Nonononono, hemust slowdown!

RunRunRunRun

Ahh, words need spaces between them, he recalls.

Spacesbetween. Opps, spaces between the words help you understand what's being said.

His thoughts had been so fast that he couldn't even understand them.

Like a blurr of ahummingbird'swings… hummingbird's wings.

Each thought had been so close to another that you couldn't separate them.

Instead of: flap, flap, flap… he could only make out flapflapflaflaflap.

At the first moment when he was conscious of the fact that he could feel the energy. He could feel the

Voltage upon voltage course through his body.

His blood is heat. His skin is energy. He is speed.

 _"KF!"_

The constant _, c,_ interrelates space and time.

Nothing is as it was.

 _"Slow down!"_

Before, the world had been too slow, but he had learned and had been able to slow himself down, so he wouldn't miss too much.

Before he could actually stop and just experience. He could amble just for the hell of it.

Now just the thought of slow is nearly unfathomable.

Now he is speed.

Or a part of speed?

He is kinetic energy.

186000 miles per second

Concerning his current state,

everything is kinetic .

Everything is light.

His feet move

without fail

without cessation.

Isn't it strange?

≈3.00×108 m/s

Some part of him recognizes that he is running. It recognizes that one foot propels him forward with each bound. It is so familiar a motion that he could not confuse it with anything of him knows that he was born to run.

 _"My little Roadrunner"_

However, to run is very different now. It's natural, more natural than having to remember to separate his words from each other.

The energy that courses through his body is natural.

But he cannot recall where he begins and where he ends. He cannot recall whether or not the energy came before or after.

Before? After?

Location? Time?

Time means everything and nothing. Is it? Was it? When?

He is so fast that he very well may be everywhere all at once.

What is location and time if he is nowhere and everywhere all at once and never at all?

 _"Kid!"_

 _ħ_ = _h_ ⁄2 _π_

Light travels through a vacuum.

He runs faster than the light.

Never before could he reach such intense speeds.

299792458 meters per second?

He surpasses it all.

 _"Kid Flash!"_

He surpasses it all. The parameters that describe speed are obsolete and too small, too slow to describe how he runs.

 _"Slow down!"_

He is speed.

Everything is kinetic.

 _"Wally!"_

He runs.

He runs.

He runs.

And that's all he knows.

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Please, leave me some feedback. Hated it? Cool. Loved it? Sweet. Confused? I don't blame you. Just let me know your reactions. :D


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